“Of course I was worried about you. How could I not worry? And I’ll be sick with worry if I ever see you in that cage again.”
“Are ya planning on staying in Ireland for a while?”
“Yes.”
“Then ya will definitely see me in that cage again.”
“Great!” I look down at my legs, at Aidan’s knees pressing against my legs, at the fine sprinkling of blondish hairs on his knees. “I can hardly wait.”
“Ya don’t need to worry about me, luv,” he says, tilting my chin up until I look into his eyes. “Bet on me. Bet on me and I promise ya won’t lose.”
I am not sure if he is talking about betting on him as a cage fighter or something else? Is he charming me, like he did ten years ago? Is seducing me part of a plan to get me to name him as co-owner of the castle?
I look at the thick fringe of blonde lashes around his cobalt blue eyes, the dangerous glints of silver hidden in their depths, and hope he is trying to seduce me. I am twenty-seven years old and I have only slept with two men. Grayson Calhoun and Mason Haywood. Mason was from a respectable Southern family, attended Ole Miss on a football scholarship, belonged to Sigma Nu, and checked all of my daddy’s boxes for the perfect son-in-law. Aidan doesn’t check many of my daddy’s boxes. Maybe that’s why I find him thrilling, because he is different from the seersucker-wearing, polo-playing men I know back home.
“I’ll bet on you, Aidan Gallagher, but that doesn’t mean I’ll watch you win that bet for me.”
“Fair enough.” He reaches for one of the tins sitting on the table between us. “Cat said ya brought me a wee gift. Is this it, then?”
“I wouldn’t call it a gift,” I say, suddenly embarrassed. “It’s nothing, really. Just something I baked.”
He lifts the lid.
“Biscuits? You baked me biscuits?” He looks at me with an expression of disbelief. “Are ya telling me the American princess took off her tiara and sparkly shoes to slave away in the kitchen for a lowly Irish lad?”
“Never mind,” I say, reaching for the tin. “Give them back.”
“I was only slagging,” he says, nudging me with his knee. “Ya need to stop spending so much time with Oxford. He’s thumping the humor out of ya with all of his dry shite numbers and financial talk.”
“Try a cookie or I’ll be giving you a grand thumping, Aidan Gallagher,” I say, nudging him back.
“There’s me lass,” he says, laughing. “That’s the Tara I remember.”
He takes a cookie out of the open tin and bites it in half. He finishes the first cookie and reaches into the tin for a second.
“Do you like them?”
“Are you slagging me? These are the best biscuits I’ve ever had, even better than Mrs. McGregor’s gingersnaps.”
“You’re serious?”
“They’re deadly biscuits, lethal.”
He breaks his second cookie in half and sniffs it.
“Working around cider every day must be affecting me sense of smell because I could swear these biscuits smell like Bánánach Brew.”
“Your smelling is fine,” I say, beaming. “Remember that bottle of cider you gave me the other day? Well, I liked it so much, I replicated the flavors in a cookie. I used your cider in the dough. Of course, I didn’t know until I got here that it was really your cider, that you own Bánánach Brew. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“We haven’t seen each other in ten years. I didn’t think I should start with, ‘Hiya Tara. I run a small craft cider business.’”
“You’ve created something really great here, Aidan. You deserve to brag.”
“I don’t brag.” He smiles and the blood rushes to my head. “I would rather brag about these biscuits.”
“You really like them?”
“I fecking love them.”
“I call them Bánánach Brew Bites.”
“Brilliant.”
He puts the tin down and leans close, just like he did all of those years ago on the rocks below Tásúildun. Only this time, he doesn’t kiss my chin.
Chapter Twenty
Aidan Gallagher is kissing me.
Again. His first kiss was innocent, a sweet, fleeting brush of lips over lips, a sincere promise of kisses to come. His second kiss—lawd have mercy—his second kiss is mature, fervent, urgent. His second kiss is making good on the promise of the first one.
He coaxes my lips apart with his tongue, deepening our kiss. I taste the cider from the cookies on his tongue, feel the grains of sugar on his lips grazing my lips, and the world around me sways, tilts, spins faster, faster, until I have to close my eyes and hold on to Aidan, anchor myself to his solid body.
“Jaysus, Tara,” he whispers against my lips. “Ya taste so fecking good.”
He kisses me again and again. Sweet cider kisses. Hot, heady kisses. Delicious, dizzying kisses that have me leaning closer, yearning, craving more.
Aidan breaks the kiss and leans back so abruptly I almost fall off my barrel. I open my eyes. Catriona must have decided to join us because she is standing at the end of the table, a smirk on her pretty face.
“Fair play!” Catriona laughs. “Whatever ya put in those biscuits did the job, Tara. Think I could get a batch for my fella? He hasn’t snogged me like that in months.”
“Feck off,” Aidan says, whipping the towel off his head and tossing it at his sister. “I have a mind to tell Cillian what ya said.”
Catriona sticks her tongue out and suddenly we are children again, chasing each other down the beach, laughing and teasing easily. Only we aren’t children. I look at Aidan’s muscular chest, the tattoo over his heart, and experience another one of those disorienting time shifts. Everything is the same. Everything has changed.
“I am sorry to tear ya away from our Aidan, Tara,” Catriona says. “I have to get going. I’m meeting me fella for dinner.”
“Of course.”
Catriona isn’t looking at me, though. She’s staring pointedly at her brother, conveying some private message with her gaze. Aidan stares back. This goes on for several uncomfortable seconds.
“Aidan!” Catriona cries.
“Cat?”
She narrows her gaze. It’s the look mothers give their children when they’re acting up in public. Aidan seems oblivious.
“Ya fecking thick-headed eejit,” Catriona huffs.
Aidan laughs.
“Tara,” he says, turning to me. “Our Cat would like us to join her and her fella for dinner. She fancies herself a matchmaker and will probably spend the evening planning our wedding and naming our wee ones. I’ve painted a bleak picture of the evening, I have, but what do ya say? Would ya like to go out with me?”
Yes. Yes, yes, yes!
“I would love to—”
“You would?” Catriona cries. “She would! There ya have it. Me work here is complete.”
“—but I already made plans.”
Aidan looks at me. The light fades from his eyes. His expression is the same, but I feel the shift in his emotions, sense the annoyance building just below the smiling surface.
“Oxford?”
“He asked me to dinner this morning.” And then I feel a need to minimize, to mitigate the damage my news might cause. “It’s no big deal. I think he just wants to talk about castle business.”
“Castle business,” Aidan repeats, his lips quirking. “Right.”
“Another time, then?” Catriona says, backing away from the table. “We can do it another time, right Aidan? Tara?”
“Absolutely,” I say.
Aidan doesn’t say anything.
* * *
The sky is as dark as my mood when Catriona drives away, beeping her horn and flashing her taillights. The drizzly rain has turned into a downpour, a relentless icy deluge with raindrops that feel like accusing fingers jabbing at me.
Logically, I know I am not doing anything wrong by going out to dinner with Sin. Emotionally, I feel guilty as a whore in church. I keep seeing the l
ook on Aidan’s face when I declined his dinner invitation, the frozen smile, the dark gaze, and it’s paining me something fierce.
Mrs. McGregor is waiting for me when I walk into the kitchen. She’s sitting at the table, holding a bag of frozen peas to her jaw.
“Gums still hurting?”
“Me gums and me gammy tooth.”
“Why don’t you go back to bed,” I say, shaking my jacket out and hanging it on the hook behind the door. “I will make a milkshake with those berries you brought back from the market and bring it to you with a fresh ice pack.”
“That sounds grand. Thanks a million,” she says, standing. “Oh, I almost forgot. Rhys left a note for ya on the counter there, luv.”
Mrs. McGregor tosses the bag of peas back into the freezer and shuffles out of the kitchen. I unfold Sin’s note and look at his neat, precise handwriting.
Tara,
Forgive me for cancelling our dinner plans. I have to return to London on important business.
I will be gone for a few days, but would like to take you to lunch when I return. Raincheck?
Fondly,
Sin
P.S. Your biscuits were quite good.
I look at the note again, focusing on the salutation. Fondly. What a nebulous word. Fondly falls in the hazy no-man’s land of salutations, between Love and Sincerely. It doesn’t inspire passion, nor does it quash hope.
I toss Sin’s note back on the counter and walk over to the refrigerator, gathering the ingredients I need to make Mrs. McGregor’s milkshake. I pour milk and scoop vanilla ice cream into the blender, making a basic vanilla milkshake. When the consistency is right I pour two-thirds of the mixture into a clean pitcher. I add fresh blueberries and blackberries to the milkshake left in the blender and pulse it until the mixture is purple. I pour the purple mixture into a tall glass. Next, I blend frozen strawberries and amaretto together with the rest of the vanilla milkshake and then layer the pink, booze-infused strawberry milkshake on top of the purple berry shake already in the glass. I slice a frozen strawberry in half and slide it onto the rim of the glass before delivering the concoction to Mrs. McGregor in her room.
She’s sitting up in bed, watching TV.
“I added some amaretto,” I say, handing her the glass. “I hope you like it.”
“Isn’t this grand?” she says, taking the glass. “Moone Boy and a milkshake! Aren’t I the pampered one?”
“Moone Boy?”
“Haven’t ya heard of Moone Boy, then?”
I shake my head.
“Sit down,” she says, gesturing to the chair beside her bed. “Watch an episode with me. It’s about the adventures of Martin Moone, an Irish lad, and his imaginary friend, Sean Murphy. Chris O’Dowd plays the imaginary friend. Have ya heard of Chris O’Dowd?”
“I don’t think so.”
“He’s gas!” She aims the remote at the television and pushes a button. The volume increases. “It’s starting.”
A cartoon drawing of a boy playing the guitar appears on the screen and loud punk music blasts from the television’s speaker, throbbing drumbeats, screeching guitars, and someone singing about Karl Marx and dancing in a disco and losing their jumper. The chorus of the ridiculous song is just one line, repeated over and over and over, Where’s me jumper? Where’s me jumper? Where’s me jumper?
I look at Mrs. McGregor and she laughs.
“Isn’t this song gas? I’ve heard it dozens of times and it still makes me laugh.”
The episode turns out to be about young Martin enduring the humiliation associated with a particular symptom of male puberty, a symptom his chubby friend referred to as “flying the flesh flag” and “pitching the tent.” Despite the uncomfortable subject matter, I laugh out loud throughout the episode. With the credits rolling, and the earwig theme song playing in the background, I make plans to watch more reruns of Moone Boy with Mrs. McGregor.
“You were right, Mrs. Mac,” I say, collecting the empty milkshake glass. “Chris O’Dowd is hilarious.”
“A treasure he is, a treasure.”
I leave Mrs. McGregor in her room, return the milkshake glass to the kitchen, and head upstairs so I can take a bath before I make dinner (for one) and climb into bed to watch Netflix (alone).
* * *
I am soaking in a tub of bubbles, a Glam Glow charcoal mask slathered on my face, singing Moone Boy’s beseeching theme song about the lost jumper, when the bathroom door opens and Aidan walks in.
I squeal. Literally squeal.
Aidan takes one look at my black-goop-covered face and bursts out laughing. I can feel my face heating up beneath the mask, my body flushing from the roots of my blazing ginger hair to the tips of my cranberry painted toenails.
“What are you doing here?” I slide down, hiding under the bubbles. “I thought you were going out to dinner with Catriona and her boyfriend?”
“Was that the Sultans of Ping?”
“What?” I snap.
“What were ya just singing?”
“It’s the theme song to a television show I watched with Mrs. McGregor, Moone Boy.”
He laughs again.
“Where’s Me Jumper is a song by the Sultans of Ping. They’re a punk band from Cork.” He crosses his arms over his chest, grinning. “You’re full of surprises, you are, Tara Maxwell. Combat boots and punk music.”
“Yes, well”—I carefully lift my foot out of the water and use my toes to grab at the towel on the commode—“I would like to keep a few surprises hidden, if you don’t mind.”
The towel falls off the commode.
Aidan picks it up and hands it to me.
I snatch the towel out of his hand.
“Get out!”
“I knocked.”
“Out!”
“Ya couldn’t hear me over all that keening.”
“Get”—I throw the towel at him but it misses, landing in a pool at his feet—“out!”
“I’m going. I’m going”—he backs out the door—“to look for your jumper.”
He closes the door, but I can hear his deep, rolling laughter echoing in the hallway.
* * *
When I walk into the kitchen a little while later—sans bubbles, charcoal mask, and pride—the last person I want to see standing at the stove is Aidan Gallagher.
There he stands, though, a dishtowel tucked into his jeans waistband like an apron and a wooden spoon in his hand. The air is spiced with the aroma of garlic and bay leaves.
“I didn’t realize you were still home,” I say, turning to leave. “I’ll grab something to eat after you’ve finished.”
“Sit down,” he says. “I am making dinner.”
“I need to get my hearing checked”—I stick the tip of my finger in my ear and wiggle it around—“because I could have sworn you just said you are making me dinner.”
“That’s right.”
“I didn’t know you could cook.”
“There’s a lot ya don’t know about me, banphrionsa.”
“Are you trying to seduce me, Aidan Gallagher?” I say, twisting a lock of hair around my finger and batting my eyelashes at him.
“Seduce?” He laughs. “I am taking pity on ya.”
“Pity?”
“I saw the note Oxford left for ya. I thought ya might need a wee bit of sympathy.”
“Why would I need sympathy?”
“Sure, rejection is murder.”
“Sin didn’t reject me.”
“Sure, he didn’t.” He stops stirring the pot (on the stove) and looks at me, grinning. “He stood ya up, didn’t he?”
“He had work.”
“Like Graylord had Fuzzy Navels?”
“Gaylord.” I growl. “Grayson. His name is Grayson!”
“Relax,” he says, laughing. “Can’t ya see I’m just winding you up?”
“Sin didn’t stand me up.”
“Okay, okay,” he says, holding up his hands as if deflecting blows. “Oxford didn’t leave y
a sitting at home, alone, so he could spend the night entering numbers into his spreadsheets.”
“Sin doesn’t care about me, is that it?”
“Oxford cares for you,” he says, chuckling. “Fondly.”
“Haven’t you ever canceled a . . .”
“A what? A date?”
“I was going to say dinner.”
He crosses his arms over his chest and looks at me. He’s still smiling, but his gaze is focused, intense.
“If I were to be asking you out on a date, Tara Maxwell, I wouldn’t be canceling and I sure as shite wouldn’t leave ya sitting at home, alone, with a sorry excuse for a love note.”
The air leaves my lungs in a sudden, reflexive exhalation. So this is what it feels like to stand opposite Aidan, to be the focus of his intensity, to feel the staggering effects of his lethal, manly charm. I try to tell myself his flirtatious banter and intense gazes are merely the moves of a man skilled in the sport of seduction, that they mean nothing, nothing at all, but I keep remembering the taste of his lips, the feel of his legs pressing against mine.
“I’m not alone. I have you.”
“Not yet,” he says, winking. “But it’s still early.”
“Ooh!” I stomp my foot. Literally stomp my foot. “You are the most egotistical, big-headed man I have ever known, Aidan Gallagher.”
He laughs. “I love it when ya whisper sweet-nuttins to me.”
Like the bell at a boxing match, the oven timer starts ringing. Ding. Ding. Aidan grabs a potholder and opens the oven. A wave of hot, floury air flows into the kitchen. I walk to the other side of the counter, wanting to put a barrier between me and the lethally hot Irishman.
“You know how to make soda bread?”
“I know how to do a lot of things, love,” he says, putting the hot bread on the counter. “Making soda bread is the least of those things, but I’m glad it impressed ya.”
I should be mighty irritated with him—barging into the bathroom while I was soaking in the tub and giving me the piss (or is it taking the piss—either way, it’s a revolting phrase) over Sin—but I am finding it difficult to keep my anger fires burnin’ when he speaks to me in his thick Irish accent. Truth y’all? I like the way he drops the h from th words, pronouncing those as toes and things as tings. Even so, I am not going to let him off that easy.
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